The Found Footage Genre Explained, or “It’s Gonna Be a Bumpy Film”

You know those ‘scary’ videos on the internet where it has someone filming a strange event on their phone? The camera shakes a lot and you can’t get a good look at whatever they’re trying to film. Imagine that as a whole movie. Wait, you can. It’s 2022 and there have been a plethora of movies like that. Alright, so what are they?

These films are identified as “found footage”. These films are more or less associated with the horror genre, but there have been times where this form of storytelling has been used for other genres. However, since the majority of found footage films are horror based, I would consider them to not only be a form of storytelling, but a subgenre of horror as well. In fact, one of the first found footage films was a horror movie. This came in the form of 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust. After that there aren’t too many examples until the 90’s. The two big films from that decade were The Last Broadcast and The Blair Witch Project. The latter would spark a huge surge of these films, and some would argue it’s still going on to this day. But, I am not here to explain the history of this technique, but rather briefly explain the elements of a found footage movie. The first? The Camera(s).

Despite the quality of some of these films, I find it interesting that as time passes, these films incorporate new ways to shoot. Back then it was simple camcorders and the large cameras seen in The Blair Witch Project, but now there have been movies that use drones, go pros…